REPORT: Reva remote charge to be unlocking battery reserve remotely
When we first heard the other day that Indian EV maker Reva was planning to announce a remote wireless charging system for its cars next week in Frankfurt, we were, to say the least, skeptical. After all, it takes a pretty significant amount of electrical energy to charge a battery when you have a substantial copper conductor making the connection. The conductivity of air tends to be pretty poor. If a report out from RegHardware is accurate (and we are inclined to believe this one) the remote charge consists of calling in to a Reva service center where the agent will send a code to the car via the telematics system. The code will automatically unlock a hidden reserve in the battery pack allowing the driver to proceed for a bit longer before plugging in. Requiring a call to unlock the reserve seems more like marketing BS than an actual technical advance and is unlikely to do anything to advance the cause of EVs in general or Reva in particular.
[Source: RegHardware]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jeff 3:19PM (9/10/2009)
I don't think that's BS at all, I think a setup like this would work really well for me. If all i had to do to access a deeper discharge on my battery pack was push a big red button, i'd probably get into the habit of hitting that button on a fairly regular basis. My 40 mile range EV with 5 mile reserve tank would quickly become a 45 mile range EV. That would shorten the lifespan of my battery pack and would increase the likely hood of actually stranding myself some day. If accessing the reserve tank becomes more of a hassle, I'd be more likely to avoid using it until I'm actually stranded, rather than getting ambitious and taking longer drives than I should. I'm just that kind of a guy. This would be a very nice alternative to getting a tow.
Sure a lot of people frequenting a site like this would be plenty capable of managing their battery charge themselves, the average buyer who might be nervous about stepping into an EV for the first time might find something like this very reassuring, and eventually possibly very useful.
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Joeviocoe 4:15PM (9/10/2009)
I think the BS Marketing is from calling it " remote wireless charging system" when it is unlocking the full discharge of the battery. It is decietful and insults the intelligence of EV buyers (potential buyers). It is IN NO WAY CHARGING!!! it is locked from discharging or depleting the battery.
So your battery is empty and your stranded. Okay, but if your out of cell-phone coverage then your really stranded and cannot unlock the much needed reserve electricity without permission from Daddy.
Instead, they should have a warning screens saying how much fully discharging the battery will damage it. Or limit of 5 times that you may discharge the battery for emergencies. When you reach the 5 times mark, then you should have to call them (from home NOT THE SIDE OF THE ROAD) to have the abuse noted in your warranty record and to re-enable 5 more emergency discharges.
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Pablo 4:37PM (9/10/2009)
And I bet every time you call them you get a check mark in your battery warrenty folder. When its time to change the batt under warrenty you might be denied.
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jeff 5:05PM (9/10/2009)
they'd have that data anyways, regardless of this new wireless setup. The current G-Wiz already records data on the charge/discharge cycle and raises a flag every time it goes below 20%. Pretty sure any of the EVs on the market today would do this.
Definitely true that calling it wireless recharging is BS, but I wonder if this is just something that got lost in translation. I don't think anybody's assuming anyone could be convinced that cellphone towers can transmit electricity, and only this one car has thought of tapping into that massive resource.
gorr 9:07PM (9/10/2009)
You cannot monitor a battery easilly.
You cannot discharge a battery without wearing it, especially if you deep discharge it, one single deep discharge can break it. You cannot run on highway safelly with a battery only car that can stop running anytime causing traffic or an accident and a ticket.
You cannot improvise on the road, like shopping for a house, visiting a neiborood or far away relatives. You cannot use all of your driving range, except for experiments like running the last 5-10 miles on your street doing circles around your house because you have to plan where to recharge except if you accept to find a place where the car will stop, beware of hilly roads because battery cars are heavy and costly and cannot be push easilly.
Car manufacturers cannot commercialise battery car because it cost more to build and the business go to selected by high financial circle battery compagny and car manufacturers don't build the battery and they said that they don't want to commercialise batteries contrary to fuelcell constructed in house by car manufacturers so the business is for car manufacturers like it is actually with ice+ transmission.
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DasBoese 8:32AM (9/11/2009)
Wow, that has to be the most coherent post you've ever made.
Most of your points are even legitimate concerns, though a great number of inexpensive ideas (and some expensive ones) have been put forth to address them by now.
About the only thing where you're flat out wrong is that a battery can't be easily monitored, which is of course nonsense.
The damage to a battery from deep discharge varies very much between different chemistries and manufacturers. Polymer, Lead-acid and NiMH batteries tend to be susceptible, but lithium iron phosphate batteries are pretty resilient to it. Nickel-iron cells are nigh indestructible, but like NiMH and lead-acid they're not really relevant here anyway.
As for the problems of where to recharge if you take a detour on a whim, that's indeed a problem which is somewhat more prominent with EVs due to their smaller range. It's not as dramatic as it sounds though. For instance, the advent of affordable GPS navigation has had a notable positive impact on the number of cars being stranded out of gas. It's ridiculously easy to include up-to-date info on charging points into the GPS data so you can plan your route on the fly, it has already been done with LNG/LPG, ethanol and other alternative fuel stations. Not to mention the fact that if you're really in danger of running out of power, you'll probably easily find a house or small business with electricity nearby, unlike one with a spare canister of gas or diesel.
Lastly, there are indeed car makers that build their own batteries, like BYD, not that there is anything wrong with sourcing them from suppliers.
And contrary to what you may believe, very few automakers actually produce their drivetrain components "in-house", most of it is outsourced to subcontractors like ZF, Magna or Navistar, as well as local foundries and suppliers.
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DasBoese 8:35AM (9/11/2009)
That was, of course, a response to gorr's unusually reasonable comment.
We really need an edit & delete feature here...